Current heating and air conditioning systems supply air into a room by forcing air through an air vent, otherwise known as an air diffuser. The conventional air diffuser 8, illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, directs air through a neck 9 to a set of directional vanes 7, which directs the air. These vanes 7 are fixed in a preset direction. They are designed to produce uniform air distribution in a lateral direction only, regardless of the temperature of the air that is supplied through them. That is, a modern air diffuser 8 distributes cold, denser air into the space at the same angle as warm, more buoyant air.
Customarily, air coming out of an air diffuser is of a different temperature than the ambient temperature of the room it is being blown into. Cold air is customarily blown through the air diffuser into a warm room, and vice versa. However, given the fixed-blade design of the conventional air diffuser 8, this leads to inconsistent temperatures within the occupied zone, which is typically defined as 4″ to 67″ above the finished floor (AFF), since warm air tends to rise and cold air tends to sink. When the heating and air conditioning system blows cold air through the conventional air diffuser 8, the air at lower levels in the room will be colder than desired, and when the system blows warm air through the conventional air diffuser 8, the air at higher levels will be warmer than desired.